Friday, February 12, 2016

It was starting to get better... time for a break.

First off, let me apologize for missing my Wednesday post. It was a 12 hour work day. That's all I need to say about that other than I'm sorry. It's also decreased my gaming time and perhaps made me a little less solid as a World of Warships player. I really must stop playing PvP matches when I'm tired and not operating on all pistons.

Last week, over the weekend, and the two days I've been able to play this week, I only sailed my Kiev and Fubuki in World of Warships. I decided I needed to give my Tirpitz a rest as it was only making my blood pressure spike. And that was working really well until work landed on me. I was posting more victories than not, and one night even ended with a 75% victory percentage!

That all ended last night when my first five Kiev games were defeats. The first game my system spontaneously rebooted about 20 seconds before the match began. Something that seems to happen every first game of World of Warships. I think I need to reload the game. Anyway, I got back into it before the teams engaged because we were on Two Brothers. The first thing I saw was an Atago running my Kiev over because I hadn't moved. I knew then it was going to be a bad game. He headed east and died quickly, the rest of our eastern contingent collapsed and were were not able to capture points faster than they did. We lost. No one wanted to push, they all just sailed in circles towards the back. You know the type. As I got a late start due to the system reboot, I only made it to fifth place on our team, but I did get a nice payout from the Atago captain for damage done. Of the next four games, I was number one or two on my team in three of them. To say my teams were playing like a bunch of noobs doesn't even do justice to the stupidity shown. Just look where our damn carrier is in this screen shot from a game in which I ended up being top gun.

He was sank less than 10 seconds after I recorded this because torpedo and dive bombers love carriers in stupid positions. Our other carrier, that is still in its starting position, lasted about 30 seconds longer. And here I thought our Kamikaze R was stupid for running right out in front of two enemy cruisers. I don't know how much longer I can take this.

Things have been going better in Armored Warfare. I've been sticking to PvE co-op missions for the most part because PvP teams don't like rank amateurs. :-/ In co-op though I've "graduated" to medium difficulty missions quite successfully. We occasionally lose, but it's almost always due to bad team mix for the map we're on, e.g. no main battle tanks on a map where we have to defend against waves of enemies assaulting our objective. I have to admit I'm as culpable on that score as the next player. But even a defeat in a medium match pays more than a victory in an easy match.

Here is one of my best results to date. I don't know how good or bad it is compared to others. Unlike World of Warships, I don't seem so focused on my stats in Armored Warfare. That's probably because I am sticking to co-op. There is no competition to be better than everyone else. Only to get the kill first. And as I've been grinding through the Swingfire, that's not even a thing with me right now. My main objective is to stay concealed and spot for my team. That's how I got all the points in the match above. I spotted 16 targets which the team then eliminated, and I get my cut of that. I find it's quite challenging to stay concealed without firing and give the team the edge they need to just annihilate the other side. The Swingfire has the best concealment rating in it's tree which is a great help.

All that said, I do plan on playing some World of Warships and Armored Warfare this weekend. But they are going to get distant second fiddle to another game I have only been able to play for 2 hours since purchasing on Monday. I've been holding off until I can invest at least four hours straight into it, and that starts tonight.

What, you expected something else? For shame. I'll briefly come up for air on Sunday to post another Sunday Highlight, but I don't expect to see much daylight this weekend. Take care, and until then VIGILO CONFIDO!

PS: I'm a total noob to XCOM having completely missed out on the original game. I don't expect to have anything worth sharing for some time. But if that changes, you'll be the first to know.